


Pillow Talk: Timestamp for "Traverse"

by thestoryinsideme



Series: Traverse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU after 9.09, Castiel's POV, Destiel - Freeform, Honesty, M/M, Minor Angst, Sexual Content, Timestamp, post 9.09, post Traverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 14:59:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1692536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestoryinsideme/pseuds/thestoryinsideme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel finally tells Dean some things that he has always wanted him to know.  But not, to Dean's dismay, at the most appropriate moments.  This is a timestamp for the full length story "Traverse", and takes place an undetermined period of time after the epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Talk: Timestamp for "Traverse"

“I sabotaged the arrangement with the prostitute,” Castiel tells Dean one Friday night as he pulls up the covers, climbs into bed and settles upright, next to him. It is apropos of nothing, Castiel recognizes, but he has things he needs to say to Dean, things he wants Dean to know.

“What now?” Dean drops his magazine to the floor beside the bed. “You sabotaged what?”

“The night you took me to the brothel. I purposefully upset the prostitute.”

“Huh,” Dean snorts, shakes his head. “Why would you do that, Cas?”

Castiel cants his head, unsure why Dean is asking this question. He thought the answer was clear at the time and even clearer now as they share the same bed. “Well, Dean, I had no desire to fornicate with that woman.”

“Yeah, well then why did you let me take you there?”

Castiel shrugs. “You were right. I believed it was very likely my last night of existence. It didn’t matter to me where I spent that evening, as long as you were there too. I would have gone anywhere, done anything you wanted.”

“Oh yeah? _Anything_ I wanted?” Dean raises one eyebrow and leers at Castiel.

“Anything,” Castiel repeats, then slides down under the covers and rolls onto his side facing away from Dean.

Dean scoots closer to him, tangles his feet with Castiel's, and burrows his nose into the dark, downy hair on the back of Castiel’s neck. “Did I corrupt you, Cas?” he asks, and although he is fingering the elastic of Castiel’s boxer shorts and slipping them lower, the question is genuine.

“No, Dean.” Under the blanket, Castiel finds Dean’s hand. “You freed me.”

 

“I bought you beer and pornography,” Castiel mumbles early on a Sunday morning between lazy kisses he places gently along the contour of Dean’s jaw while he kneels over him.

“Hmm?” Dean groans, cranes his neck to the side to allow better access.

“I wanted to get pie as well, but the clerk advised they were out. I’m afraid I may have over-reacted to that news.”

Dean opens one eye and looks at Castiel. “Is this some kind of weird, angel foreplay? ‘Cause it’s working.”

“No, Dean.”

“Then what the hell are you talking about, Cas?”

“When I lost the tablet, and you and Sam brought me back to the bunker. You wouldn’t talk to me. You were angry with me. Rightfully so, but all I wanted was for you to accept my apology. I thought perhaps if I made myself useful you would listen. You needed food, so I went to a store and bought some things for you. For the bunker.”

“Cas, I was acting like a ten-year-old. Wait - you said you bought porn? For me?”

Castiel nods. “Busty Asian Beauties.”

“Yes. Very good choice.” Dean smirks. “One of my favorites.”

Castiel sighs. “I know. I was pleased with my selections. But that’s where Metatron found me and distracted me with his trickery. I never brought any of it back to the bunker. I’m not quite sure where I left them.”

Dean pats Castiel on the cheek and slides his hand down to rest on his shoulder. “Aww Cas. You tried to give me porn. That’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Castiel is nonplussed. His brows squeeze together as his forehead creases in disapproval.

Dean blinks sharply, twice. “Other than pulling me from hell,” Dean stammers. “And dumping your entire dick family. And, you know, getting archangeled. More than once.“ Dean flaps his fingers and makes explosion noises for effect. “Those things were, uh, pretty nice of you too.”

“I had no idea Busty Asian Beauties meant so much to you Dean.” Castiel breaches the tight line of his lips with sarcasm. “Perhaps we should leave this bed and go get some for you now, if that’s what you would like to look at.”

“Nah, Cas. I’m not so into that anymore.” Dean reaches around and slaps Castiel’s buttocks. “Besides, I’ve got everything I’ll ever want to look at right here.”

 

“I watched you rake leaves.” It is a Wednesday afternoon, and Mrs. Tran is away from the bunker, shopping, when Castiel grunts out the words. He relaxes and sinks down into the sofa cushions, Dean’s hand still wrapped around Castiel’s softening length.

Dean lets go, wipes his hand on his own shirt before he pulls it over his head and drops it to the floor. He flings his leg over Castiel’s thighs and straddles him.  “I don’t rake leaves,” he says. He plants one hand on Castiel’s shoulder for balance and runs the other across his chest, gently swiping his nipples with each stroke.

“No. Not anymore.” Castiel says.

Dean raises his brows. “When then?”

“With Lisa,” Castiel says. “When you were living with Lisa.”

Dean’s hand stills. He shakes his head slowly. “You must be fucking kidding me.”

“No,” Castiel says, and he begins to feel again the regret of that lost opportunity, the shame of what came after.

“Why are you telling me this?” Dean’s tone is harsh and deep, but Castiel understands Dean’s resentment.

“Because I want you to know that I tried, in my way, to go to you for help.”

“By watching me rake leaves?”

“I couldn’t do it,” Castiel says. “It was a cool, breezy afternoon. You were alone in the yard, making piles. And you were enjoying that, the pull of the rake over the leaves, the rustle of the broken foliage crackling between your fingers as you grabbed handfuls in your fists and placed them into plastic bags for disposal.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” Dean says. “I mean, I raked the leaves every week, but I don’t remember…”

“And then Crowley came. And I left with him.” Castiel lowers his eyes.

“You were right there and you said nothing? You chose Crowley instead of…” Dean jumps up and off of Castiel’s lap. He rubs his eyes and backs away from him.

“You were at peace, Dean. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for your help again. I couldn’t bring myself to encroach on your happiness.”

“Happiness?“

Castiel narrows his eyes. “Yes. You seemed content Dean.”

Dean huffs with a quick, fierce shake of his head. “That wasn’t happiness you saw. That was coping. That was me, dealing with losing my brother and my best friend all in one fell swoop. Me, accepting that I would never see either of you ever again. Me, wondering every day how the hell I got where I was and questioning why I was supposed to believe it was all worth it.”

“But Lisa must have…”

“Lisa was great. Lisa was never the problem, Cas. She knew I missed Sammy, but I couldn’t tell her that he died saving the world. I wanted to. I wanted to tell everybody. I wanted the whole world to know. And I couldn’t tell her about you, Cas. Couldn’t tell her about the angel who pulled me from hell, chose me over Heaven and helped us end the Apocalypse.” Dean closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and turns away from Castiel. “It was nice living Lisa’s life for a while,” he says, his voice is lower, softer. “It really was. But it was a lie. It was never happiness.”

Castiel stands and moves toward Dean. “I thought you were happy Dean,” he says. “If only I had known I would’ve…” he stops, then continues. “That is the only reason I left with Crowley.”

“Yeah, well, that was a mistake, Cas.”

“I know that now. I didn’t see it then.” Castiel closes the gap between them but stays behind Dean. “I didn’t understand many things at that time. And perhaps, neither did you. But believe me that when I say to you now ‘I watched you rake leaves’, it is me telling you that I love you. That I have loved you for a long time, that I have loved you before I was able to understand that I did.”

Dean spins around and looks at Castiel for several moments before grabbing his face with both hands and kissing him. “I missed you so much, Cas,” he says.

“You never called for me. You never prayed.”

Dean nods. “I was afraid to.”

“I am here now,” Castiel says. “And you will never have to miss me again.”

 

“I killed you five hundred times,” Castiel utters unexpectedly. It is a rainy Thursday evening.  Castiel’s breath is heavy with exhaustion as he leans over the naked, listless body sprawled carelessly atop soiled sheets and across the entirety of the bed.

Dean’s eyes open slowly, reluctantly. Castiel changes his mind and tries to push up and away, but Dean grabs his wrist and shakes his head.

“Go on,” Dean says.

“In Heaven. As part of Naomi’s retraining.” Castiel falters and Dean squeezes his wrist, encourages him to continue. “One at a time, of course. Over and over, I stabbed you with my sword. Until I was able to do it without thought, without hesitation. Until I could reject your begging, your pleading, and ignore the sound of your voice, the fear in your eyes.  Until I was a machine.”

Castiel’s throat constricts. He drops his chin to his chest. This is too hard, harder than he was prepared for. Dean pulls himself up and leans back against the headboard. “She _did_ order you to kill me,” he murmurs, reaches for Castiel’s jaw and gently guides his face level with his. “But you didn’t do it,” he says. “Because you are not a machine.”

“I became one. I killed Samandriel because I was ordered to.”

Taken aback, Dean releases Castiel. “Naomi tried to tell me that killing me was your idea of protecting the tablet.”

Castiel freezes, his blue eyes wide and wet. “Dean, no. Never…”

“For a split second I believed her. Because I didn’t know where you were or why you left. You didn’t answer my prayers. You had left me, again, and I didn’t understand any of it.” Dean pulls the sheet over his hips, covers himself. “But that moment of doubt was just that – a moment – and it didn’t last, Cas. Naomi knew how you felt about me, how I felt about you, and she tried to use it against us. Monsters have been doing that to me and Sam since forever.”

Castiel nods, afraid to speak words that he knows will come out broken and wrong.

Dean draws in a long, deep breath. “You are not a machine,” he repeats. “You told me that once. Do you remember that? You told me that I wasn’t a machine, that I was only human. And that’s what you are, Cas. That’s what you were, even when you had your grace.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

“I had no idea what she put you through. I’m so sorry, Cas, but I am glad that I know now. I’m glad that you told me.”

Castiel presses his lips together and nods.

“Even though your timing really sucks. Waiting until we’re getting busy would not have been my choice,” Dean adds. He smiles, and that makes Castiel smile too, because the timing of this revelation, and all the other revelations, was indeed intentional.

“You are most unburdened at these moments, Dean,” Castiel says.

“Huh?”

“There is so much I want to tell you. So many things I have wanted you to know,” Castiel explains. “I choose these times, when we are or have been physically intimate, because you are wholly yourself. You are open and candid. You are unwary, and as for myself, it is when I feel most clear.”

“You mean I’m naked. And you’re naked.”

Castiel sighs. “We are stripped bare. Unclothed and unguarded. In more ways than one.”

For several moments Dean considers this, then pushes the covers down and off, exposing himself. “So is it just symbolic or does this mean we have to have all of our serious talks this way? ‘Cause that’s just weird.“

Castiel grins. “Well, I think that will be entirely up to us.”

“Whatever, dude.” One side of Dean’s mouth curls up. “You really are a weird, dorky little guy."

 

They have just returned from an early-morning-hour Monday hunt, an easy salt-and-burn, when Dean tears off and throws his t-shirt onto the floor. Without a word he pushes Castiel’s shirt up over his shoulders, past Castiel’s head and raised arms, and tosses it in the same general direction. He uses both hands to unbutton and unzip Castiel’s pants, drags them down below his thighs, then allows Castiel to finish undressing while he removes his own denim jeans.

Dean grabs either side of Castiel’s waist and tugs him closer. With hips and chests aligned, Dean rests his chin on Castiel’s shoulder, tilts his head so that his mouth meets Castiel’s ear, then whispers to him.

“I kept your trench coat because a part of me always believed you’d come back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://thestoryinsideme.tumblr.com//) here!


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